


Frozen Routine

by Wasuremono



Category: Flight Rising
Genre: Background Relationships, Body Horror, Extra Treat, Gen, Parasites, The Fortress of Ends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-25 22:47:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12045894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wasuremono/pseuds/Wasuremono
Summary: There's only one conscious prisoner in the Fortress of Ends. Guarding him isn't as much of an honor as you'd think.





	Frozen Routine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Silex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/gifts).



> This is just a little treat inspired by the Press Start prompt list. The other major inspiration for this story was the 2014 Crystalline Gala skin "Frozen Together," which I've always thought must have a weird story behind it; when given a chance to write about the Icewarden's collections for someone who likes body horror, it was an irresistible subject.
> 
> Hope you enjoy, and have a great fest!

Like all of the Icewarden's servants, Tomonori wakes early. Sunrise is bitterly cold, but in the Fortress of Ends, noon is no better. Every initiate new to the Southern Icefield, as Tomonori once was, learn that there's no use dawdling; the sooner one's duties are begun, the sooner each day of duty ends, and the Icewarden values efficiency. Tomonori is punctual and is happy to rise with the sun.

Even were he not, sharing a lair with a Spiral would force his hand. As early as Tomonori wakes, Thokcha is always up before him, engaged in an insomniac's busywork. This morning, as Tomonori puffs out his fur to retain heat and gathers his tools, she's at work with the mortar and pestle.

"Ah, Tomo, you're up, hello. Here," she says, presenting him with a bowl of steaming cactus mash flecked with green bits -- peppermint? Tomonori takes a clawful and eats. Yes, peppermint, and plenty of it. Thokcha is less creative with her cooking than she is her locksmithing, but she knows what he likes. Tomonori devours breakfast, hungry for the warmth as much as the flavor. He may be a Tundra, but he was not born to Ice, and it helps to start his rounds with something warm in his belly.

"And for your prisoner," says Thokcha, passing forward a larger bowl. It's all pink and purple and red, dark succulent berries intermixed with chopped insect parts from who knows how many species, smelling simultaneously delicious and faintly nauseating. Tomonori prefers not to think of his prisoner's diet. "The mess sent us Mana Thieves for him. With luck that'll spur his appetite on."

"I do what I can," says Tomonori. "Do you have a project today?"

"Just a set of manacles for a thing some little clan dragged out of the Floes. Supposed to have twenty arms, suspected to be late Second Age. He's ordered relic-metal for the manacling, so it might be a bit interesting after all."

"Good, good. Stay happy and busy. I'm off."

"Enjoy yourself!" calls Thokcha, as she always does, as Tomonori steps from the lair into the frigid halls of the Fortress of Ends's dormitory wing. Thokcha usually enjoys herself. She's a craftsdragon, of recognized skill; he's a patrol-warden, nothing special or novel, even if he has been presented with a strange "honor." Enjoyment is not a part of his routine.

Tomonori guards the only conscious prisoner in the Fortress of Ends. Most would not consider it an honor. He is no exception.

* * *

Even with his peculiar duty, much of Tomonori's morning is spent on ordinary patrol. After all, most of his assigned block is devoted to standard glacial storage of low-value prisoners and specimens, some stored two or three to an ice chamber; rather than waste a second patroller in such a dull block, the Icewarden has judged Tomonori's split attention adequate. He walks the rows slowly and carefully, claw-clicks echoing in the solitude of the block, gauging the strength of storage more with his nose than with his eyes. Secure glacial storage is scentless. Only when something is leaking and cracking is there an odor, of dragon or rot or something worse -- but today, the air is clean and empty, save for the faintest traces of his prisoner. Those always linger.

Between two empty ice chambers is the prisoner's cell: hollow, this one, but enclosed in transparent glacier-hewn walls, each the width of a Fae's wingspan. Certain efforts have been made to make the prisoner's cell amenable to him, as there is no need for the prisoner to be miserable, just contained. A pile of furs and rugs offers bedding; one wall is planted with shrubs and vines, both for food and to camouflage the adjacent ice chamber, in which the prisoner's pearl is suspended, a speck of white in an ocean of clear blue. The prisoner, like Tomonori, is of Arcane hatching, and he cannot be trusted with potential implements of magic.

The prisoner, as always, is buried in his bedding, as if it can keep him warm in his current state. One of his arms protrudes, its ever-thinning layer of flesh and scale encapsulated in the frost that has taken over the prisoner's body: his curse, his birthright. The prisoner has the smell of spring ice, or failing chambers, where something organic and terrible is emerging -- his usual smell. Tomonori attunes his arcane senses and can feel nothing being worked. It's a precaution, more than anything; the prisoner has not attempted magic in some time.

Tomonori raps on the cell wall before opening the small door that allows for feeding. "Breakfast." 

The prisoner emerges from his bedding, frail wings folded in quiet resignation to another morning and another meal. The heavy frost that makes up more and more of his body sloughs off slightly as he walks, leaving a thin trail of crisp snow behind him. In his abdomen, a dark shape stirs, faintly visible through the frost-flesh: something like a Fae hatchling, curled as in the egg. Probably a Fae hatchling. It'll be months yet before the healers can tell with any certainty.

"This is good," says the Pearlcatcher prisoner between mouthfuls of breakfast. "Did your mate make it? That burning black-iron Spiral?"

Thokcha is not Tomonori's mate, not exactly, or perhaps just not in a way that the prisoner would understand. The Icewarden's servants are not encouraged to loyalty to anyone or anything but the hierarchy of the Fortress of Ends. They do not raise families. If some of them dwell together in the barracks, and are... perhaps, familiar with one another? That is a coincidence, and one that is not discussed. The prisoner doesn't need to know this, though, and probably doesn't wish to. "The mess sent the insects. You need to eat more, you know. The more you eat..."

"... The more I feed it," says the prisoner. "The more I feed it, the sooner this is over. You don't have to lecture me again."

"You're not eating enough, and you don't smell well-fed. I think I _do_ need to." 

The prisoner is quiet, cleaning his bowl thoroughly, with what Tomonori thinks might be spite. When he returns his gaze to his jailer, though, his eyes seem almost penitent. "My appetite's been off lately. It moves too much when I eat, and it... jostles things inside. I can't keep up grazing for long. Isn't there some other way?"

There are many things Tomonori wants to say. That "there's surely other ways" is the oldest and most common Arcane self-deception tactic; that searching for "other ways" is what landed the prisoner here in the first place; that Tomonori remembers his own father's "other ways," and that he ran away from them as soon as his wings could carry him to the Icefield. He is silent for a long while. 

"'Other ways' are for the Observatory," Tomonori says at last. "In the Fortress, we do what works."

"I know I'm in no place to ask for anything," says the prisoner. "I'm not stupid, all right? But... wouldn't we all be better off if this went faster? And you know that Spiral. Your mate, the black-iron locksmith. Claws glowing with fire. She could have this thing out of me in a minute. The Icewarden gets his creature, and I..." The prisoner slumps down to lie on his bedding again and stretches his neck out to rest his head on his claws. "I can be done."

"She could do it. But not safely."

"I don't care about 'safely.' If I die, I don't care."

"Safely for the _child,_ " says Tomonori. "The Icewarden demands his child returned in good health. That means it emerges when it chooses, not via surgery. You need to eat more and hurry it along."

"Fine," says the prisoner, and rises to shuffle slowly towards the plants on the cell wall. "Fine. Stars curse all of your wretched hive."

"Stars watch you and preserve you," says Tomonori as he turns to return to his rounds. "Until you repay your debt."

* * *

Tomonori returns to his lair not long after sunset. An uneventful day, he decides -- no breaches or damage to the collection to report, and if the prisoner is somehow both resigned and spiteful, that's just his usual mood. Those Mana Thieves clearly didn't sweeten his disposition, even if he did clean his bowl. Ah, well. There's nothing to be done -- simply the passage of time, the long work ahead. He'll be grateful when the prisoner is finally ready for preservation in a solid chamber; if nothing else, it will be the end of these tedious conversations.

At home, Tomonori eats apples and reads until Thokcha is home, well into evening. "Oh, what a day!" she says upon her return, a few droplets of stray metal running off her scales and freezing before they clatter onto the floor. "The thing's definitely a Second Age one. Thirty legs on it, but no claws! I've still got five pairs of manacles for tomorrow, and that'll mean an early start, of course, but it's so wonderful to have a project. You ought to come see my monster, Nori."

"Funny," says Tomonori. "Mine wants to see you. He thinks you'll cut the child out of him if he asks nicely enough."

"Well, I could, I suppose. Interesting challenge, to do it and keep them both alive, don't you think?"

"Or just the child alone. He doesn't care."

"Oh, yes, of course, how I forget. Your own little monster, dreaming of death."

"Or saying what he thinks we want to hear. If I let him, he'd run home. His parents did this to him, and... he'd still go back." 

"Well," says Thokcha breezily, "he's a stupid little monster, then, isn't he? Whatever hatches from him'll be smarter." She lands atop him to curl around his wings, and the molten-slag scent of her and warmth of her scales chase the wretched prisoner from his mind. Neither he nor the prisoner will ever see the Starfall Isles again, and thank the Icewarden for that. He's silent, and as always, Thokcha takes that as her opening to continue. "Really, though, I could take a look, if we could get approval. Attempt something a bit different, offer a mercy to your silly thing?"

"Don't you have a monster with thirty arms to secure?"

"When I'm done with _that,_ but yes, of course. Always something to do, isn't there?"

There's always duty to attend to, Tomonori knows, duty that anchors him to the Icefield and to his life. His prisoner will be there tomorrow, and the next day, and the next season. "Always," he says. "... You know, Thokcha? I always thought I'd be happy to be rid of him. But now that I think about it, I think I might miss him, when he's gone."

"For a while. But then you'll have another monster. C'mon, Nori, let's have some supper."


End file.
